Why You Should Never Skip Leg Day

It’s kind of a running joke in the fitness industry that everyone hates leg day, and if you want to know why, I think there are a number of different reasons.

For a start, many of the most effective leg exercises are actually really intense, such as barbell squats and deadlifts, for instance, and just the thought of doing squats is enough to put many people off.

In addition, it can feel like you are wasting your time doing leg workouts because a lot of men in particular are primarily interested in building up their chest and biceps. This is particularly true during the winter because no-one will see your legs away.

Plus of course it can take a long time to see any muscle development in your legs, even if you are training regularly.

Another reason why it is all too tempting to skip leg day is because you know that you are going to have aches and pains in your legs for the next day or two if you are training them hard with heavy weights.

In addition, there is always a slight risk that you could damage your back when doing deadlifts and squats, and you can also damage your knees if you do popular exercises such as squats, lunges and leg extensions without proper form.

Nevertheless even though there are many reasons why you might be tempted to skip leg days, there are a few reasons why this is never a good idea.

First of all, there is a danger that you will look like this guy pictured right, which is not an attractive look at all.

Yes he might have impressive guns, but it is patently obvious that he never works on his legs in the gym because they are seriously underdeveloped in comparison to his upper body.

The truth is that if you have bulging biceps and a well developed upper body with skinny chicken legs, you will look absolutely ridiculous in the simmer when you wear a pair of shorts.

Apart from this, there is also one other reason why you should never skip leg day – exercises such as squats and deadlifts are two of the best all-round exercises that you can do because they target large muscle groups.

Indeed it is often said that if you could only do two exercises for the rest of your life, these are the two that you should choose.

So if you were to neglect these two exercises and focus all of your efforts on bicep curls, pull-ups and bench presses, it will probably take you a lot longer to see results.

The point I want to get across is that no-one really enjoys working on their legs, but if you are doing lots of strength training in the gym, you really need to include plenty of high intensity leg workouts if you want to build muscle and achieve a perfect well proportioned physique.